In the early s, an American man and a girl, probably nineteen or twenty years old, are waiting at a Spanish railway station for the express train that will take them to Madrid. They drink beer as well as two licorice-tasting anis drinks, and finally more beer, sitting in the hot shade and discussing what the American man says will be "a simple operation" for the girl. The tension hills like white elephants summary and analysis the two is almost as sizzling as the heat of the Spanish sun.
The see more, while urging the girl to have the operation, says again and again that he really doesn't want her to do it if she really doesn't want to. However, he clearly is insisting that she do so. The girl is trying to be brave and nonchalant but is clearly frightened of committing herself to having the operation. She tosses out a conversational, fanciful figure of speech — noting that the hills beyond the train station "look like white elephants" — hoping that the figure of speech will please the man, but he resents her ploy.
He insists on talking even more about the operation and the fact that, according to what he's heard, it's "natural" and "not really an operation at all.
Short Summary Of Hills Like White Elephants By Ernest Hemingway
Finally, the express train arrives and the two prepare to board. The girl tells the man that she's "fine. Nothing has been solved.
The tension remains, coiled and tight, as they prepare to leave for Madrid. The girl is hurt by the man's fraudulent, patronizing empathy, and she is also deeply apprehensive about the operation that she will undergo in Madrid. This story was rejected by early editors and was ignored by anthologists until recently. The early editors returned it because they thought that it was a "sketch" or an "anecdote," not a short story. At the time, editors tried to second-guess what the reading public wanted, and, first, they felt as though they had to buy stories that told stories, that had plots.
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In part, some current essay the early rejection of this story lies in the fact that none of the editors who read it had any idea what was going on in the story. Even today, most readers are still puzzled by the story. In hills like white elephants summary and analysis words, it will take an exceptionally perceptive reader to realize immediately that the couple is arguing about the girl's having an abortion at a time when abortions were absolutely illegal, considered immoral, and usually dangerous. Early objections to this story also cited loke fact that there are no traditional characterizations.
The female is referred to simply as "the girl," and the male is simply called "the man. Unlike traditional stories, wherein the author usually gives us some clues about what the main characters look like, sound like, or dress like, here we know nothing about "the man" or "the girl. Can we, however, assume something about them — for example, is "the man" somewhat older and "the hillls perhaps younger, maybe eighteen or nineteen? One reason for assuming this bare-bones guesswork lies in tone of "the girl.
It is a wonder that this story was published at all. When it was written, authors were expected to guide readers through a story. Readers are never aware of an author's voice behind the story. Compare this narrative technique to the traditional nineteenth-century method of telling a story. Then, such authors as Dickens or Trollope would often address their readers directly. In contrast, we have no idea how to interventions od to Hemingway's characters. Had Hemingway said that the girl, for example, spoke "sarcastically," or "bitterly," or "angrily," or that she was "puzzled" or "indifferent," or if we were told that the man spoke with "an air of superiority," we could more easily come to terms with these characters. Instead, Hemingway so removes himself from them and their actions that it seems as though he himself knows ajalysis about them.
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Only by sheer accident, it seems, is the girl nicknamed "Jig. That said, during the latter part of the s, this story became one of the most anthologized of Hemingway's short stories. In part, this new appreciation for the story lies in Hemingway's use of dialogue to convey the "meaning" of the story — that is, there is no description, no narration, no identification of character or intent. We have no clear ideas about the nature of the discussion abortionand yet the dialogue does convey everything that we conclude about the characters.]
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